Ft. Mountain part 2

There is a great little hike out to an outlook where you can see the valley and Chattsworth. Trouble for Petey is it involves lots of metal grate stairs. Or maybe I should say trouble for Wood because Petey will eagerly dance up to the stairs and then stop and no amount of encouraging will get him to put his little paws on those steps. He eagerly jumps into Wood's arms to be carried both down and then back up. We got him on one stair at the bottom but I think that is because it was mostly covered in leaves.

And here is the tower. I didn't get a very good shot of the rock wall but it is mostly a piled up bunch of rocks about 2 to 3 feet high about 200 to 300 ft away from this tower and kind of encircling it.... where it can.

Our new favorite- Fort Mountain State park

Petey is always ready for a hike and ever impatient if we stop in the journey. He is NOT a fan of metal grid stairs though as you will see in part 2 of this post.

Nice direct walk up to the rock wall and stone tower

Stopped to take a shot of this guy and he stopped mid crawl to say "what ch'you looking at lady?"

Conflicting legends about how the stone tower and wall came to be. Some ascribe them to some Welsh explorers and others to either a Native American tribe or some pale eyed folks.

Our annual fall visit to Black rock mountain

We had a beautiful day for our trip to Black Rock mtn state park. Very clear and just the right hiking temp, low 60's

Of course for some reason I just love to get mushroom shots. Not lots to choose from so far this year. Hard hike up to the top but at least since it was cooler I didn't feel like I had to drape myself over the marker at the top of the mountain this year. Boy am I glad we had our hiking sticks with us. Since it had rained a couple days before the trail was really slippery and muddy. Lots of moss covered rocks and roots to make the climb a wee bit slick. ;-)

This tree was just covered. I guess when there are this many mushrooms on a tree it is dying??? or at least not really healthy???

Blueridge day 1

The view from this year's cabin. It rained when we arrived and a bit on the next day. We were able to hike the next two days and now we have rain again today. It is very cozy here and a nice place to just sit, relax and listen to the rain.

Puerto Rico

Sunrise right from my hotel window. I had the best view. I could have stayed there weeks. It was a great hotel

I think this may be the lowest I ever saw the tide. What fun watching the surfers every morning before work- both board, boogie and body surfers.

Other than the mosquito bites I kept getting this was just the best work week. The people were great, my colleagues were very enjoyable AND we got stuff done.... all in this BEEEEAUTIFUL setting. Oh and I was introduced to DonQ Limon mmmmm tasty

pale gray hummer

I guess this may seem like my blog is turning into the nature center or something, but we see such interesting creatures. This little guy/gal had none of the usual hummer markings for the type of hummers we have here. Not sure if it was an albino or not but it spent the entire day tirelessly keeping all other hummingbirds away from all three feeders in the back yard. She was feroucious.